Lime Twist: What Go-To-Hell Can Do For You

July 22, 2013

Whenever we put up a post on the bright colors and crazy patterns of what is known colloquially, or rather Internetically, as go-to-hell, the chorus of curmudgeons always chimes in with cantakerous remarks about how it’s all mere kids’ stuff.

There’s no changing the minds of intractable fellows such as this, but for those of you whose mind is open at least one degree, and who don’t normally wear candy colors, this post is for you.

There’s a guy I regularly play tennis with: late 40s, thin as a rail, very tan, and rather soft spoken. He’s just returned from overseas, where he lived the past 10 years, and before he left, he liquidated all his belongings, including most of his clothes. A former teacher, he’s now trying to launch an acting career.

The guy (lets call him Eric) usually dressed for the courts in black or grey fleece shorts baggy enough to accomodate a quadruped, and an equally oversized faded burgundy t-shirt hanging on his thin frame as if on a wire coat hanger.

Talk turned to clothes one day, and Eric admitted that his extremely limited wardrobe consisted of whatever he could find at the local dollar discount store.

This was clearly a fashion emergency, and as I’ve always been an inveterate closet-purger, I thought I’d throw some old shorts and polos his way. I’d be helping out a new friend, and it was fun upending the notion that queer eyes advise straight guys, but not the other way around.

A couple weeks later I showed up at the courts and saw a threesome with a couple of guys I recognized. Figuring they might need a fourth for doubles, I headed over to find out. After a minute of shooting the breeze, I noticed one of the guys was wearing a shirt that looked eerily faimilar. It was a lime-colored polo, somewhat similar to the Castaway shirt above (it, and plenty more like it, are available from our loyal sponsor Country Club Prep), and reminded me of one I used to have. I took a closer look and sure enough it was Eric standing there checking his strings. He also had on well fitting khakis, and a white tennis cap, which might explain why I didn’t recognize him.

But I’d like to think it was due to the power of good fit and a confident dash of color — especially for a summertime sporting activity. Eric looked younger, more confident, and just all around better thanks to well fitting clothes and a bold color gesture. Enough so, in fact, to make him all but look like a different person.

36 Commentson "Lime Twist: What Go-To-Hell Can Do For You"

The issue, with this shirt anyway, isn’t the color – it’s the excessive and cheesy logo and striping/piping. This problem of over-tack-ifying is rampant among brands….especially among newer ones that are striving to ‘re-imagine’ classics that simply don’t need reinventing (they “reimagine”, in large part, to justify absurd pricing). Ribbon detail here, patch/logo there, faux wear/holes/fraying/paint here, funny stitching there, and so on.

I think many “curmudgeons” are fans of Chipp. Chipp was doing something new, high quality, smart, and based on years of menswear and tailoring experience. Neo prep companies – who strive to be different by doo-dadding up their wares with all sorts of silly affectations (including logos, which Chipp never flaunted) – aren’t doing anything new or smart, the quality is rarely high, and their experience/knowledge is frequently next to nothing. It’s mostly cheap, pretend, dress up/costume stuff for high school and young college kids. Chipp wasn’t, which is why we’re still referencing them today……

Oh, I think all the grumpy old men were fine with Chipp. After all, no one was compelled to buy the GTH articles. And, they’d make you really stuffy stuff it that’s what you wanted. I recall two Chipp items my father had which I particularly liked. One was a British tan gabardine suite and the other was a very pale yellow pincord jacket. I’ve never been able to find a RTW pincord jacket in anything like that subtle color. It looked great with a white oxford shirt and charcoal summer worsted trousers, “bottomed off” by brown tasseled loafers by Lloyd & Haig. I don’t know if anyone recalls Lloyd & Haig (Squeeze must remember) but I felt their tasseled loafer was superior to Alden’s and when Lloyd & Haig disappeared, I remember I felt it was a step down to have to go to Brooks and buy the Alden. Ah, yes, those were the days when you could buy your shoes at Lloyd & Haig on Madison and then walk down a few doors and pick up your personal blend at the Wilkie Pipe Shop. Those were the days when men-were-men and war-was-war; no room for weaklings. Oh, ah, sorry, I’m sounding like a grumpy old man.

My G-T-H style reads like a radioactive Roy G Biv chart….and I don’t care. The entire point was to tell the “old stuffy headmasters” exactly where they can go in their boring white ocbd and tan slacks. Deal with it.

Though I have no firsthand wisdom to offer regarding go-to-hell stylings, I’d agree with the above comments that the polo’s color doesn’t seem particularly loud (though it’s not for me), yet the embroidery is over-the-top.

As for contrast taping on polos, there’s this awesome photo of my dad, circa 1985 with a navy polo with a white contrasting fabric (impossible to tell what material) on the interior of the placket. In my opinion, it looks understated and classy…though perhaps too European for this particular forum!

In the emporia that I occasionally visit, preppies who dress down and plumbers who dress up are both wearing the same Crayola colors.
As Boston Bean and Dutch Uncle implied, gentlemen in navy or white polos look like aristocrats of the first water.

I’m thinking. The battle lines have been drawn. How about an Ivy Style soft ball game in Central Park: Curmudgeons v. Preppies. Obviously, the Curmudgeons’ uniforms will be old fashion, something like the old Yankee uniforms. The Preppies’ uniforms will, of course, employ several colors of the Crayola kind. I’m up for it, and I’d have to travel 3,000 miles. Anyone else? CC, think of the photo ops!

Biff – I believe Reactionary Curmudgeon is saying that white is their GTH color and that navy in non-GTH. More importantly, I think that the point that was originally brought up in this comment section is why are Trads reluctant to embrace current GTH, but have no qualm with embracing GTH items from the hey day? And would they feel this same way about GTH items produced in the hey day if they were alive and trad back then?

I apologize, my comment was confusing. The first sentence was about Reactionary and the rest was about the point that Pale Male raised. Which was, why are people okay with some of the wild stuff that Chipp was doing while hating the wild stuff that current companies do? Would these people have hated Chipp in its prime if it were not considered classic now, but edgy then?

AEV, you seem like a really smart guy with a great sense of style, but I wish you were happier. It is very seldom that I hear anything positive out of you and i have started to think of you as the Mad Rapper sort if you are familiar with that reference. Cheer up young fella. The poorly dressed only make us look better.

Good point as far as the question of rejecting current attempts at GTH and then what to do with Chipp’s GTH pieces. You’re right about that paradox. IMO, the problem with GTH today is that we are in a very different period, long past ’80s prep and it’s reinterpretation of Ivy League, where the “youth” lines of Brooks and J. Press seem dominated by GTH. Thus, GTH seems more the norm rather than the shocking. (Punk probably killed GTH anyway but that’s a different story.)

For example, I find madras pants to be more GTH today than patchwork madras pants. Who would have thought?

Reactionary,

I don’t buy it that white is an daring shirt color in the Ivy League canon. Pink earned the honor long ago. Your attempt to establish blue as THE shirt color is idiosyncratic, at best.

I was the third generation fammily owner of Lloyd & Haig Shoes. We closed our last store in 1996. I just googled Lloyd & Haig for the first time and was delighted to see so many posts about our stores and our shoes.